Living Glaciers Of California

The Sierra Nevada of California may e regarded as one graud wrinkled Blieet of glacial records. For the scriptures of the ancient glaciera cover every rock, mountain, and valley of the range, and are in many places so well preserved, and are written in so plain a hand, they lave long been recognized even by those ■who were not seeking for them, while ;he smal living glaciers, lying hidden away among the dark recessos of the Loftiest and most inaccessible su units, remain almost wholly unknown. Looking from the summit of Moitnt Diablo across the Joaquín Valley, after ;he atmosphere has been washed Tvith ■winter rains, the Sierra is beheld stretching along the plain in simple grandeur, like some immense wall, two and a half miles high, and covered almost as bright is a rainbow, in fó'tir horizontal bands- the lowest rose purple, the next higher dark purple, the next blue, and the topmost pearly white - all beautifully interbïended, and -sferying in tone -with the time of day and the advauce of the seasons. The rose-purple band, rising out of the yello-w plain, is the foot-hill región, sparsely planted vith oak and pme, the color in great measure depei'ding upon argillaceous doils oxposed in extenfuve openiiigs among the ir : the dark purple is the región of Unè yp'vv nud sugar pines; the blue is the cobl middle region of the silver-firs , and the pearly banci of summits is the Sierra Alps, composed of a vaat wilderness of peaks, variously gronped, and segregated by stnpendous canons and s-.vept with torrenta and avalanches. Hcre are the homes of all the glaciers left alive in the Sierra Nevada. During the last fWe yeara no lesa than sixty-five have been discovered in tliat portion of the range embraned between latitudes 36 30 ' and 39. They occur scattered tliroughout tliis vast región singly or in small groups, on the north sidea of the loftiest peaks, sheltered beneathbroad, frosty shadows. Overtivothirds of the entire number are contained between latitudes 37 and 38, and from the highest fountains of the San Joaquín, Tuolumme. and Owens rivera.